ABSTRACT
Supplemental oxygen is recognized worldwide as a life-saving treatment for first aid, acute and chronic diseases, and this has recently become more important than ever, due to the recent Covid-19 pandemic. This study aims to analyze two important issues related to oxygen therapy in patients with respiratory difficulties, namely oxygen quality and patient safety monitoring. The specific case in which the supply of oxygen fails due to the disconnection of the nasal cannula has no solution in the open literature. As a result, tangible results on how such risk can be avoided are still missing, and hardly any guideline can be found on how to treat this issue from the engineering perspective. In this respect, this work is dedicated to exploring sensing technologies used to detect vital signs and track the patient's condition in real time during therapy, with the aim of defining a starting picture of the current state of the art. The results obtained following the verification of some of the most used sensors in the market are therefore presented and discussed. The integration of these components in an embedded system has also allowed us to understand the practical limits and strengths in terms of complexity and effectiveness of each technology. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has exacerbated the need for viewing medical oxygen as a precious drug and thus work towards its conservation which ensures optimal supply to the patient. This paper describes the practical implementation of a 'plug-and-play' automatic oxygen flow-rate controller for clinical use suitable for low-flow oxygen therapy. A microcontroller based electronic controller drives the extent of opening/closing of a proportional valve in line with the clinical oxygen supply line. The controller output is based on the pulse oximeter readings and the mode of operation chosen by the caregiver. It controls the oxygen flow-rate with an accuracy of 0.1 liters per minute (LPM) around the desired flow-rate. In the automatic mode, The flow-regulator is programmed through the control algorithm to enhance oxygen conservation. To ensure patient comfort, sudden changes in flow-rate are avoided and the rate of change of flow-rate is capped at 1 LPM per minute. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged health systems around the world. Maternal-foetal medicine, which has been particularly affected, must consider scientific data on the physiological processes occurring in the pregnant woman's body to develop relevant standards of care. Our study retrospectively compared the clinical and laboratory characteristics of 52 COVID-19 pregnant patients with 53 controls. Most of the pregnant patients required medical attention during the third trimester and therefore we propose that vaccination is needed prior to the 30th week of pregnancy. We found no differences between the 2 groups in the course of illness classification system, days of hospital stay, need for oxygen supplementation, need for mechanical ventilation, and ICU admission. Moreover, clinical manifestations and imaging findings were comparable. Pregnant patients needed a greater oxygen flow rate and required high flow oxygen therapy more frequently. Considering pregnancy-related physiological adaptations, we found that COVID-19 infection in pregnant patients is associated with higher levels of inflammatory markers, apart from serum ferritin, than in non-pregnant women, and concluded that biomarkers of cardiac and muscle injury, as well as kidney function, may not be good predictors of COVID-19 clinical course in pregnant patients at the time of admission, but more research needs to be conducted on this topic.